After the discussion of the Preservation of the Self by Fence Building (Where I End and You Begin…), and by understanding Accountability (Who is Accountable for What and to Whom?), the lingering question of Caring remains, and wishes to be answered. How does it all fit together? How can you Care and still maintain the Integrity of your Self?
What is Caring?
Caring: displaying kindness and concern for others.
Care: feel concern or interest; attach importance to something - feel affection or liking
Care/Caring is an emotion based construct. Feeling is the manifestation of an emotion.
To Care/Caring as a verb is an act of DOING-here is where the confusion comes in, as it pertains to Obligation and the Preservation of the Self. We cross over from the feeling, aka emotion of Caring, to alleviating the emotion with action/DOING.
Caring: the work or practice of looking after those unable to care for themselves - look after and provide for the needs of.
The conclusion is that if we care than we must also DO.
Caring as DOING is very specifically Helping. Helping becomes Caring. Caring becomes Helping.
If you Care about someone you do not stand back and watch them struggle, correct? You DO something…to Help.
Ahhh, here is the conundrum. Here is where things get blurry, sticky, confusing. Here is where fences get plowed under (Where I End and You Begin…).
The Blame from Without and from Within
Caring as Helping becomes Expectation. Expectation from Without and Expectation from Within.
If you Care than you will/must DO.
If you choose not to DO in order to Self Preserve, than what appears are our old friends Guilt, Blame, and Shame-from Without and from Within - accusing you of not Caring.
Have you heard this before (stated or implied)? If you cared about me you would do x,y,z… If you love me (care about me) you would do…
Have you had these thoughts/feelings (stated or implied)? I am a bad person if I do not do something for him/her… If I do not do something to help it means that I do not love or care about… I love and care about so and so, so I have to do something to help…
The Reflection
Why are we willing to forfeit our stability, sanity, and psychological integrity, in order to try to help/“fix it” for someone we care about?
Have you heard this statement? “It is painful to watch his/her suffering.” “I feel badly for so and so…they are struggling, I wish I could do something to help.”
It feels almost intolerable to watch and Care without DOING. Watching someone we care about struggle makes us feel helpless and therefore, drives us to DO something/take action/help/fix it - orrr…ahhh here’s the rub - take Control.
We need to alleviate our own suffering. We need to alleviate our own discomfort. Name something harder to tolerate than helplessness (complete loss of Control)?
What someone’s suffering and struggle does is reflect back, hold up a Mirror to, our own helplessness, our own lack of control, our own inability to resolve the problem.
“I am the parent. If I do enough (enough being bottomless), I can save my child from drug addiction.”
Seeing our helplessness and our lack of control, as a reflection in the Mirror, we are moved to alleviate the tension and discomfort through action, whereby, we feel like we have some semblance of control-we are DOING Something about it.
The Caring - Doing/Helping Conundrum
When is helping not helping? Is helping the only means of Caring? Is not helping not Caring? When is not helping Caring?
Jumping into the water to help someone who is drowning (helping/Doing/trying to “fix it”) often leads to the drowning of the Caring party who plunged in the chaotic fray.
Where is the line for Caring? It is at the Fence line.
You can Care about someone without taking on the Care of them (Helping/Doing). You can Care for someone without drowning in their chaos. You can Care for someone standing at the Fence line and pointing.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
The White Tiger has pointed out in the past, that there is no true altruism. Everything we do, Every Thing, is based in meeting a need within our Self. If it does not meet a need within us, we very simply do not do it. This is the premise of all of our decisions. It is the Secondary Gain. It is hard wired human behavior.
The philanthropist practices philanthropy because it makes them feel good. It gives them a sense of purpose. It is the Secondary Gain.
As the original post, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…, points out, we act, we respond, not to what others are doing. We act, we respond to how what others do makes us feel about our Self. Every Other human being (the ones we Care about and the ones we do not) is a Mirror. All of our behavior is precipitated by what is reflected back to us, Self reflected back to Self, in that Great Mirror called Other.
Be careful that your decisions and actions concerning people you Care about are based in the fact that you Care about them - which may mean not Caring/Doing.